Threshold
by henriettaline
Summary: After Broadway legend Rachel Berry breathes her last... she finds herself in a place looking very much like her old high school. Oneshot.


_Author's Note:_  
_I found this possibility gave me comfort, and I post it here in the hopes that it might for others as well. Vagueness is deliberate; project your own beliefs into it as best suits you. Peace and love to all. – Henrietta Line_

_Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or its characters, or the lyrics to "Almost Paradise" (by Eric Carmen and Dean Pitchford)._

* * *

Rachel is confused.

She's lying in her bed at home, feeling so tired, more than ever, and she drifts off to sleep and then...

Then she's walking through the halls at McKinley. The old McKinley, not the much newer school that replaced it.

A dream? It doesn't feel like one. A memory perhaps? She feels much younger, the spring in her step returning. But her mind is still the same, she has all the experience of her eighty-four years with her. And she feels like she's there, aware, moving on her own and at her own volition. Though she does feel a pull, a long-ago habit reactivating to guide her to the place she knew best.

She turns into the choir room, finding it to be the same as when she was a student there, none of the newer technology and decor that even the old McKinley had before its replacement. It's empty of others, but the chairs and piano make it look like Glee Club is supposed to start at any moment. Their Nationals trophy gleams proudly behind glass. The whiteboard is blank.

She walks to the piano and slowly starts pressing keys. A simple melodic progression, not any tune she recalls.

"I thought it would be you."

Rachel knows that voice so well, even though its owner has been dead five years. Kurt... but sounding so much more youthful. She turns and her breath catches as she sees him, her long time best friend, looking much as he had at thirty.

Kurt smiles at her. "I'd say it was good to see you, Diva, but it's not really that kind of situation. Still, it happens to us all, and I'm glad that when it happened to you, you came here."

"Kurt?" Rachel is still flabbergasted. "What do you mean 'situation'? This is a dream, isn't it?" Though somehow it doesn't feel like one.

Kurt shakes his head. "No, Rachel. This isn't a dream. I'm not sure what this is, but that's not one of the options."

"Options?" She felt so tired, before. Not like sleep, though. More like... a chill runs through her. "Is it really you, Kurt?"

"I think I'm really me. Not that I would be likely to tell you anything different."

"_Kurt._" Rachel glares at him, not interested in his attempts at humor. "You died five years ago."

"Five years? That long. It didn't feel that long." He shrugs. "That's expected, I suppose, from what others told me. Time isn't so consistent here." He looks intently at her. "For you it's just happened."

"Just happened? But like I said, five years... _oh_." The meaning of his words sinks in, that 'it' isn't his death, it's... "I'm dead?"

He nods.

"_Oh._" She presses her lips together. "I don't feel dead."

"Neither do I."

"You look like you're thirty."

"Oh, please. Twenty-five at most. Though I did look twenty-five when I was thirty, so..." He smirks. "And you, maybe... twenty-seven."

She rolls her eyes. This certainly seems like Kurt. "Even after death you still have to one-up me."

"So you do think you've died," Kurt fires back, looking smug.

She sighs. "It could have been that, it felt different. Fading away, or changing somehow." It isn't hard for her to accept – she had felt herself weaken, and her life had felt full, finished. "And now being here, with you – but Heaven is _McKinley_? I would never have expected this."

"This isn't heaven. It isn't purgatory either, though the real McKinley sort of was. There are no slushie attacks here, no bullies."

"I didn't see anyone else, just you."

"There have been others. But people don't come to one of these places unless they're supposed to, either it's the right place for them or they're invited to visit."

"But you thought it would be me?"

"When I felt the pull to come here, yes. Too strong for almost anyone else, and certainly for anyone else who would be drawn here." He squeezes her hand. "And you sounded weaker, singing in that last benefit. We wondered."

"You heard me? You can hear people on earth still? Can you see them?"

"No, we don't see things. And we don't hear much. Special personal things, sometimes, if they're for us. But we do hear music, beautiful and meaningful music. We heard a lot of yours. And some of mine, so I've been told. Thank you for the tribute, by the way. I've always loved that song, but never more than right then."

Rachel smiles. "I was thinking of you listening, but it's amazing that you actually were."

"Amazing is one word for this place. And I never thought I would say that about somewhere that looks like our high school. Even though that's only this part of it."

"Speaking of things you never thought," Rachel challenges. "Enough about me agreeing that this is the afterlife, whatever this is, how about you? You were adamantly against there being anything like this, you have to admit now you were wrong."

"I admit nothing. This could all be a dying hallucination, something my brain has put together from my final nerve impulses."

"And my being here?"

"From your perspective it would be your hallucination. One featuring me, you're showing excellent taste at last."

Rachel pouts at this, but her eyes are impish. "I had a good teacher." She gives a happy sigh and throws herself into his arms. "Oh Kurt. It's so good to see you again."

"It's good to see you too," he said, hugging her back. "Especially since you look really good for eighty-four. This place is good to us, and I don't mean McKinley."

"Where is this place?" Rachel looks around again. "It's empty, if this is where we're all supposed to go."

"I don't know. Nobody does, though there are a lot of theories. Some people think it's the doorstep of heaven, for others it's another dimension. Or dancing with the Northern Lights, or on the edge of a black hole, leading somewhere else. Or just something we imagine, as our bodies release our energy patterns into the universe. How our consciousnesses interpret what we encounter, as we transcend our mortal forms and go beyond."

"Hmm." Rachel took in those possibilities. It seemed strange to hear Kurt describe all that, but then again she wouldn't expect Kurt to espouse one particular option either. He hadn't believed before, and even after death it seemed he still didn't. These ideas, they came from others. "Some people?" she asked, wondering who – and where – these others might be. "There are other people here, then?"

"In their own places, mostly. We build what comforts us, it seems, and our energies bring us back together, finding the others that we belong with." He smiles at her again. "That's why I thought it would be you, when I found myself coming back here."

"You just found yourself coming here..."

"It's not as strange as it sounds. All the boring and conflicted parts of life are gone, and these places we come up with are interconnected somehow, so... we just get the sense that we're wanted somewhere and it happens. Nobody's been able to figure out too much about the transitions, our minds don't stay on it enough for that."

Rachel thought about that herself, about seeing a version of Broadway somewhere – and found the thoughts dissipating. "As if the place doesn't let us," she muses. "It doesn't want us to try to figure it out."

"It seems that way. Of course there are all those theories about it, but even a who's-who of recently deceased scientists haven't been able to carry out a competent investigation. The only thing everyone agrees on is that it's temporary. It's somewhere to adjust and to come together again, but sooner or later everyone moves on. Almost everyone, anyway." He laughs. "There's a British family that keeps accumulating. Every new arrival sits down with the others for tea and brings them up-to-date with the remaining members on earth." He shrugs. "It's quite a cosy setup, pleasant people with assorted cats and small dogs. They've had us over a few times. Tea, singing, all very nice. I skipped the hiking, however."

"That's an interesting hallucination you're having," Rachel teases. Kurt's continued insistence on not believing, even while talking to her in the afterlife, is amusing. "Or that I'm having."

"I like being invited to visit for tea. And you know that."

"So they've stayed?"

"For now. They seem to have settled in without any impetus to leave, but sooner or later even they may run out of family to wait for, and go." He looks wistful. "My mom waited," he confesses. "She and my dad, they left soon after, but – to see her again, to know she was proud of me and had even heard me sing, for that if nothing else I hope this is real."

"That's wonderful, Kurt." She doesn't feel her fathers, though. They had probably gone once they had reunited, listened to her a few times and gone. It would have been like them. "But, go? Go where? Go how?"

"Nobody knows. And nobody sees. We just know they're gone, to wherever people go. Or where our energy goes, it's not like our bodies can really be here."

"Our energy. Or our souls?"

"Maybe."

"Why?"

"They just – feel that it's right, apparently. That it's time, there's nobody else to wait for, or something. Maybe even that it's time for them to be somewhere else. Or someone else: reincarnation on earth, aliens, stars, there are a lot of possibilities."

"Or nothing?"

"It seems like there's somewhere or something, maybe we just all tell ourselves that but it feels more like change than destruction. Something significant. This is more of a holding pattern, until we feel ready. And complete, with whoever we need for that."

Complete. Rachel considers this word, her eyes wandering. Certainly Kurt was a crucial part of her life. But she also knows who made him the most complete, his own family. As for her – she bites her lip, her eyes seeking out his picture, but she finds the place where it should be is surprisingly empty.

"Did I create this place?" she asks. "No, you said you found yourself coming back here. You've been to this version of McKinley before."

"Yes. Quite a lot actually. Is there a problem?"

"Just – " She looks over again at the wall, the empty wall next to the left door. "Everything else is so detailed, your memory of this place must be really good, did you leave it out for a reason?"

"Oh my memory of this place isn't quite as good as all that." Kurt follows her eyes, and she knows he knows where she is looking, to the one place she always looked every time she came back to McKinley – where Finn's plaque should be. "But I didn't build this, it was put together by someone who hadn't been away from it that long. And of course he never saw what you're looking for."

Her eyes linger again on that empty spot. When she turns again to Kurt they are starting to tear up. "Really?" She looks around the room, noticing the details. "Finn built this?" She can understand that, it has been his home, his happy place. Perhaps this is why it eases her to be there, not just her memories of the place but feeling him in it too.

"Yes. I'm just visiting."

"So where is he now?" To come together with others, to be complete – even after her full life, there is truly only one person like that for her. The others were of her life, not beyond it. She is happy to see Kurt, and he is a wonderful guide as always, but of course he is waiting for his own ones, not her.

Kurt exhales. "I don't know. He's been here, most of the time I think, not that time here means the same. He should be around still. I've been stalling," he admits. "Trying to figure out what to tell you and hoping he'd show up and I wouldn't have to tell you about him."

"But you were called here, you said." Rachel waves off Kurt's protest at her terminology. "You felt it was right for you to be here now."

"Yes."

And suddenly she knows. She knows where she has to go, now, and that it will have what she needs.

"Thank you," she tells Kurt, hugging him tightly. "For everything. You're the best best friend an annoying Jewish girl from Ohio could have wished for."

He hugs her back. "So this is it? So soon? You don't want to – go for tea, or something else?"

"I have somewhere to go," Rachel answers, nodding as they stepped apart. "And it feels like that should be it. He'll be there. So goodbye Kurt, I love you."

"I love you too. And him." He smiles. "Maybe I'll see you on the other side."

Rachel takes off at a run down the hall, heading for the auditorium.

* * *

The auditorium is dark as she enters.

"Finn?"

The stage lights up, and her heart – or what she still thinks of as her heart – leaps. Because there he is, standing tall at center stage, in a white t-shirt and faded blue jeans, pale freckled skin and unruly short brown hair and the biggest grin she has ever seen.

"Hey Rach."

At that she is on stage with him, his arms enfolding her, hers gripping onto him as she presses her face into his shoulder. And everything comes flooding back to her, the feel of him, his scent, his gentle strength surrounding her. She felt it at times throughout her life, even long after he was gone, his love and support remaining somehow, but this is the real thing. Or it certainly feels like it, whatever the truth is.

He is young, of course he is, he had never grown old. She had aged, but no more, she finds herself seventeen again in a simple white sleeveless dress. She feels his face against her hair, hears him inhale, and realizes as she feels him shudder that he is doing the same as she is, reconnecting with sensations that for so long were only memories.

They stand there, simply holding each other, for who knows how long.

"You're here," he murmurs, and she feels him drop a kiss onto her head, that old familiar gesture she loves so well. "I'm glad you took your time though." He pulls back to look at her, and traces his hand lightly over her hair. "Not that I can tell time or anything, but Kurt filled me in."

"He did for me too, just now, he told me about this place. Whatever it is. So – you stayed? All this time, you stayed. You waited for me."

Finn shrugs. "It was pretty much my idea of heaven anyway. I could hear you sing."

"You listened to me?" She had so hoped he could hear her, from the first time she was able to sing again, singing for him.

"All the time. A lot of the time I wasn't the only one, you've got quite a few fans around here. But I think I'm the only one who heard your hip-hop attempts."

"Good." She shakes her head at her long-ago experimentation. "As musical regrets go, I suppose it wasn't that bad. At least it was brief."

"You took a risk. You wouldn't be you if you didn't push yourself."

"True." A few tears prick at her eyes, but not sad ones. "You always know me so well." Even now, after so long apart. But she was always that person at heart, she supposes, and he is the one who helped her blossom and grow. Not so strange he should still understand her now, but also just as wonderful as it ever was, to be understood.

"Did you have a good life? You always sounded amazing, it seemed like things were good. Most times."

"Yes," she answers, sinking into his arms again with her head against his chest. The heartbeat would be phantom, of course, but still part of the pattern and essence of him, and it eases her as it always had before. "It was – it was life. High moments and low moments, like most people I suppose. Extra extreme in my case perhaps."

"Extreme, for Rachel Berry?" Finn chuckles, and she turns her head up to see the small smile play over his lips.

"Well you know me, always the drama queen," she teases in return, then sobers. "I had all those massive dreams, and still got almost everything I wanted. Few people can say that. It wasn't easy, but I was happy." No need now to bemoan the 'almost', with him there.

"Life isn't meant to be easy," Finn murmurs, and she recognizes the line and cadence of one of her hit songs.

"You heard that one too, huh?"

"One of my favorites."

She's pleased at this, after all she did write it because of him. "How about you? I know it's been a long time but..." she had so hoped he wasn't scared, hadn't been angry at what happened, at their separation and the loss of his future. She had been torn up enough for both of them at fate's cruel twist, finally drawing solace from thoughts that he was at peace.

"I was heartbroken that I left you, worse to hear how hurt you were but – that stuff, grief, all those negative emotions, they don't last here. They can't really dig in and take hold."

She nods slowly. She has wondered if meeting Finn again would be like a dam breaking, but no. There isn't sorrow or regret here.

"And to hear you, and know you were making your dreams come true – I've always been so proud of you, Rach. So happy for you."

"You always were rooting for me."

"You deserve it. I always knew you were a star. And I love you."

"I love you," she answers. She reaches up to gently touch his face. "You know I wouldn't have been able to do any of it without you, don't you? If you hadn't believed in me. If you hadn't helped me reach outside of myself and connect. Your love and faith and inspiration made me who I needed to be." He had such doubts, before. But now he simply nods his head.

"I know." He touches his forehead to hers. "Best thing I ever did."

"Best thing I ever had," she whispers back, and kisses him.

They sit on the edge of the stage side-by-side, holding hands and talking further. She tells him about her life, from _Funny Girl_ on; more about life than career, but also some career moments that truly touched her, things she is amazed she was able to do, and some of the young talents she mentored. He tells her about meeting his father, when he arrived, a few of the others he's met in their various in-between places, and thanks her for the work she put into supporting music education and military families. "I heard you sing for them," he tells her. "Kurt told me a lot too, but I think I always knew what you were singing for." He touches her knee. "And Ellenore said to say thank you."

Ellenore... Rachel remembers the young girl in New Orleans, dying of a rare brain tumor. It was her wish to come to Rachel's show on Broadway but she fell too ill to travel. The sight of her shining face, when she realized Rachel had come to sing to her in hospital, is one of Rachel's most treasured memories.

She rests her head on Finn's shoulder. In a way, she feels she lived for both of them, as fully as she could; she is happy to be able to share it with him now and know that she did well. Once upon a time his approval was all she had, and now it feels like they have come full circle, except without the burning need for more. She is home, finally.

Although there is still more to consider, a different more.

Eventually Rachel scrambles back to her feet, using Finn's shoulder as a boost. "I'm ready now," she states, as he rises to join her.

"Ready?"

"To go beyond. With you. You've waited so long already, and I don't need to wait." The others in her life – she doesn't need to search for the ones who have already passed, or wait for those to come. They will understand. This is where she is called to be, this man the one who makes her soul complete. Her _person_. Not to sell any others short, those other strong connections in her life, but this is beyond life, something fundamental. "Will you surrender with me?"

Finn's lips turn up at one corner, giving her that half-smile she holds so dear. She knows he recognizes those words, that question. "You know we don't know what happens, or where we go," he reminds her. "Or even if there _is_ anywhere that we go."

She nods. "I know. I just, I feel there is, there is somewhere. And wherever we go, whatever happens, I'll be with you. That's all that matters." She cups his cheek. "Are you ready?"

"I've been ready since you walked through the door," he admits. He looks at her intently. "Just to be sure. You don't want to stick around a little? Wait for someone, or listen to music? Your memorial should be something special. And you have fans here."

"No," she answers. "I don't need to look back. I've done all that, been a star, lived my life." With the perspective she has, from her sixty-six years of life since Finn died, she no longer has the hunger for fame or success. She's had all that she wanted and more. And yet despite all that life between and all the change she has seen, she is still the same girl as she ever was. She is still his and he is still hers, and wherever this next step takes them won't change that. "I have all I need right here," she says, taking his hand, interleaving their fingers as they would of old. "Though I would like one thing. Sing with me again?"

"Think I can keep up with a music legend?" Finn teases.

"You can always sing with me. You know that." She smiles. "In fact, I'm willing to bet that you sang along with me sometimes. Didn't you?"

"You'd win that bet. If we had anything to bet. 'Cause yeah, I did. If I knew the song, and it was just us."

"Your pick then. Anything you want." She makes a face. "Except hip-hop."

Finn chortles, then looks thoughtful. "Do you remember our second summer?"

"Mmm. Two months of love, love, love. In my mind and heart forever."

He locks his eyes on hers, and smiles. "Peanut butter."

Rachel beams. "_Footloose_?"

"Yep."

They spent one rainy summer afternoon cuddled up together on Rachel's bed, feeding each other peanut butter and watching the original _Footloose_. She encouraged him to dance along with her as they watched parts of the movie again, and he gave it his best attempt. It was a blissful afternoon, full of love, laughter, and music, with never a thought of anything other than the two of them, right then. And they both loved the movie's duet.

"Very appropriate," she says. "You always know the right song."

"Thank you." Finn reaches for Rachel's other hand, intertwining their fingers there too. Music starts, coming from all around them.

Rachel looks over to the piano, which is empty. "I almost expect to see Brad," she giggles.

"Nah, no way Brad was sticking around here longer than he had to. But we get music all the same." He takes a deep breath. "You ready?"

She nods. It is a step into the unknown, but she knows she has never been more ready.

His eyes intent on hers, Finn starts to sing. The sound of his soft expressive voice thrills her, to hear it again after so long.

_I thought that dreams belonged to other men  
'Cuz each time I got close  
They'd fall apart again  
_

Finn pauses, and Rachel sings in answer:  
_I feared my heart would beat in secrecy  
I faced the nights alone  
Oh, how could I have known _

Finn joins her, and their voices blend together as if they'd never been apart.  
_That all my life I only needed you_

_Almost paradise_  
_We're knocking on heaven's door_  
_Almost paradise_  
_How could we ask for more_  
_I swear that I can see forever in your eyes_  
_Paradise_

They embrace each other, faces close, Finn lowering as Rachel rises to meet him, the final word soft as a whisper.

_Paradise._

As seemed to happen with their kiss on the New York Nationals stage, when their lips meet everything around them fades away.

And Rachel feels – peace. Peace, and overwhelming love, and Finn.


End file.
